Yes, there was a spring on Lowell Avenue at the corner of Hull Street in Newtonville . . . a spring of fresh water flowing from the cliffs that were once a bird sanctuary, the cliffs bequeathed to the City of Newton by the Claflin family, the cliffs that were forever to be held sacred for birds, upon which a large brick building was built (once a public school, now a privately owned apartment building).
Marash Girl remembers Grandpa Moses walking down to that spring from her home opposite the cliffs, walking down with two jugs, one in each hand, returning home with the jugs filled with fresh, clear, cold spring water. Later, as Marash Girl got big enough to carry a jug of water, she would walk north on Lowell Avenue, past the woods, to the corner where the short rusted metal pipe jutted from a cleft in a rock out of which poured the delicious God-given brew!
But soon, the land was sold, and developers cut down the trees and built houses . . . and yes, they built a house right over the spring. Marash Girl remembers how the cellar hole was left empty for months -- empty that is except for the water at the bottom of the cellar hole -- water from the spring that could not be stopped. And well after the house was built over that cellar hole, that house on the corner of Lowell Avenue and Hull street, the spring kept giving, the cellar was always wet. The question Marash Girl, at age 8, and throughout her life, always wondered: why could that developer not have built the spring into a beautiful fountain in the front yard of that corner house?
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